A judge ruled that Apple's case that Amazon infringed its "App Store" trademark was too weak to grant a preliminary injunction.

Early setback could prove troubling later in the case

Two weeks
ago we reported that Apple, Inc.'s (AAPL)
lawsuit against Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) in
Oakland, California federal court was going nowhere fast. Upset about
Amazon's use of the term "Appstore" ("Appstore for
Android"), Apple sued claiming Amazon had infringed on its trademark
"App Store".

It sought
an injunction forcing Amazon to temporarily cease using the name while the case
was decided. However, the presiding judge said at the time that Apple's
evidence of customer confusion was weak and that they were considering denying
the motion.

Now Judge Phyllis Hamilton has made good on that threat, smacking down
Apple's request for a preliminary injunction.

Apple's case seems to be going nowhere. Judge Hamilton reaffirmed on
Wednesday that Apple had failed to present compelling evidence that customers
would confuse Amazon's store for Apple's, or vice versa. The judge also
expressed skepticism over the last several weeks about Apple's arguments that
the trademark was non-generic.

A trial is set to begin October 2012.

While the preliminary injunction does not officially affect the trial outcome,
it does set the mood for the trial. Preliminary injunctions (PI) are typically
granted if the evidence is strong or there's a compelling case that irreparable
damage will occur if the injunction isn't granted. A denial of a PI
request can have the opposite effect -- it can indicate pre-trial that the case
is weak and that the alleged harm isn't great.

Apple is trying to play a semantic game of cups and balls. Instead of calling programs "programs", they prefer to call them "applications" because the first four letters happen to match the first four letters of their company name. They did coin the term "applet", which you'll notice includes all five letters of the company name.

But to work backwards from that and claim that they should own "App Store" because the first three letters refer to both "Apple" and "application" is asinine.